A head teacher of Government Elementary School, Sri Chand Colony, Mundian Kalan, faced suspension, while another was transferred for allegedly making students lift garbage.

The teachers faced the wrath of the Education Department after a video of two students pulling garbage buckets went viral and reached the higher authorities.

When the matter reached District Education Officer, Elementary, Jaspreet Kaur, she immediately suspended the head teacher Charanjit Kaur and also ordered the transfer of another teacher Savita for adopting ‘negligent attitude’ on duty. As per the information, the particular school has no sweeper and schoolteachers along with students clean the school premises under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Students’ kin support teacher

Dozens of parents of students gathered at the school, when Deputy DEO, Elementary, Kuldeep Saini went to inquire the matter today. The moment Saini reached, parents cornered him and demanded reinstatement of the suspended teacher. “Parents want reinstatement of the teacher as they claimed that the teachers were good and the school had a congenial environment. They alleged that the person who shot the video lured the students first by giving them something to eat and then took them to the school and misbehaved with the teacher. I am probing the matter from all angles and will send the report to the DEO for further action,” he said.

No vacancy of sweepers in primary schools, says DTF

Ramanjit Sandhu and Rupinder Pal Singh Gill of the Democratic Teachers’ Front said there was no vacancy of sweepers in primary schools in the state, due to which teachers face pressure to keep schools clean. Elementary teacher union (Sekhon), president Sukhdhir Singh Sekhon said Congress MLA Bharat Bhushan Ashu was apprised about their demands.

Sources said the district has 1,003 elementary schools and most of these were without sweepers. Government teachers requesting anonymity said due to the pressure of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, apart from doing cleanliness work at schools at their own level, teachers of some of the schools had also employed private sweepers and were paying from their own pockets to ensure cleanliness. Sources said there was no vacancy of sweepers in primary schools, due to which teachers often force students to indulge in cleanliness drives.

Teachers’ union threatens stir

The Government School Teachers’ Union, Punjab, threatened to launch stir if the suspended teacher was not reinstated, saying they may boycott the Modi-led Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Parveen Kumar, general secretary of the union, said the union members would meet the Education Minister and even the CM to demand reinstatement of the teacher. “Schoolteachers have a lot of pressure to keep schools clean under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, due to which teachers and students are conducting cleanliness at their own level,” he said.

All District Education Officers in the state, school Principals and District Education and Training Centres have been asked to keep their premises tobacco-free by not allowing any vender to sell such products within 100-metre radius from the outer boundary of the school.

Officials were strictly told to implement the directions in letter and spirit. As per the letter issued by the Deputy State Project Director Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, Punjab, (copy with The Tribune) it was brought to their notice by the State-Level Coordination Committee, State-Level Task Force and State-Level Monitoring Committee that tobacco products were still being sold around school premises in the state. “DEOs, schools principals and school heads must ensure that tobacco products should not be sold within the radius of 100 metre from the outer boundary of the school. Also take help of the police administration or municipal corporations or councils. Do put signage on the outer walls of the school indicating ‘no smoking area’ or smoking is an offence,” the letter said.

What the Act says

According to the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA): “Tobacco products cannot be sold to a person below the age of 18 years, and in places within a 100-metre radius from the outer boundary of an institution of education, which includes schools, colleges and institutions of higher learning established or recognised by an appropriate authority.”

The government is meting out a step-motherly treatment to aided school employees, holding back their salaries and arrears.

The Education and the Finance departments are creating hurdles in the payment of arrears to them.

Aided School Employees Association (regd) spokesperson Manish Aggarwal in a prèss note issued here today said the Finance Department had stalled the payment of arrears to them from May 2017 and the revised grade pay arrears bills were also pending with the treasury.

He said the Education Department had sanctioned the grant for the arrears but the Finance Department was not passing it.

Manish said DA instalments were paid to employees, along with salaries, but teachers of aided schools had to wait for three to four years for the release of grant.

The grants were already being released in a delayed manner, the limits were crossed when instead of passing the grant, the Treasury Department stalled it, he added.

He said there was fear among the employees that if the grants were not passed before March 31, then it shall lapse.

Members of the union appealed to the Finance Minister and officials of the department to release instructions to the District Treasury Office in this regard so that the teachers and employees get their dues.

Activists of the ETT Teachers Union today demanded the resignation of the Chief Minister over their long-pending demand of regularisation and better salaries.

Teachers said the government had failed to keep its pre-election promise of granting a meeting to listen to their grievances and issuing a Cabinet notification on their demands.

SGS/AIE/STR Teachers Unions, under state committee leader Swarna Devi said EGS/AIE/STR teachers were serving for the past 14 years.

They were serving in 7,800 government elementary schools in the state. The issues of these teachers remain unaddressed even after 14 years.

During this tenure many teachers had fallen prey to their struggle. Teachers were craving for regularisation and drawing only Rs 5,000 per month.

They said in 2003, these teachers were appointed at Rs 1,000 per month allowance.

While the onus of gathering the students and admitting them to schools lay with the teachers, the state government later mandated courses from state educational institutions for these teachers and got them recruited at Rs 5,000 again, they added.

They said the government was making excuses like the non-clearing of TET course, among other reasons, which were being cited to deny regularisation.

These teachers had gathered children in the age group of 3 to 6 years for the pre-nursery classes started in government schools, they added.

They said many of these teachers also spent from their own pocket to ensure toys and other recreational material for nursery students.However, despite this, the government was not willing to recognise their contribution and give them adequate salaries.

They complained that before the elections the Chief Minister and Manpreet Badal had promised that a notification on their demands shall be passed in the first Cabinet meeting. But nothing has been done in this regard so far.

They said when they went to a minister, they were referred to the Education Secretary Krishan Kumar.

Due to this apathy, they were forced to put with many problems. While most of the teachers had crossed the limit to apply for further employment or jobs elsewhere, they rued.

The District Education Department has pulled up schools for furnishing incorrect data under U-Dise on the e-Punjab web portal.

Owing to several discrepancies in the data submitted by the schools on the website, the details have now been rejected by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

The schools have been given warning to correct the data and upload it on the website again by January 10.

The schools have also been cautioned that in case they falter this time too, there is no provision to correct the data once again.

If the data of any school is found to be incomplete or incorrect, the affiliation to the school may be withdrawn on orders of the MHRD.

Following orders from the Director General School Education-cum-state director Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan, the schools have also been given a list of directions, which have to be followed by correcting the data.

Despite repeated reminders, schools in the district have not been taking the task of furnishing Aadhaar card details of their students on the e-Punjab portal seriously.

Taking cognizance of the uncalled for delay in sharing the data of all students, the DGSE has shot off a notice to the schools to make sure that the data is uploaded on the website by January 20.

As per information, state education secretary Krishan Kumar has even written to all district education officers to send him copies of the letters and emails, which were sent by them to the schools of their respective district asking them to furnish the Aadhaar card details.

The Education Department may soon initiate the procedure of withdrawing affiliation of the schools, which fail to abide by the guidelines despite repeated reminders.

The department is now tightening the noose around the schools since the state government is linking all personal documents with a person’s Aadhaar card details to ascertain identity of the person.

The schools have since been directed to upload the details of the students on the e-Punjab portal of the State Education Department.

Aadhaar details mandatory

The Aadhaar card details of the students are mandatory, especially in case the student is a beneficiary of any of the social welfare or scholarship schemes given by the state or Central Government. Schools needed to upload the Aadhaar card details of the students on the e-Punjab portal to facilitate the procedure of transferring the amount of social welfare schemes and other scholarship schemes directly to the accounts of the students to curb chances of delay in the disbursement of the funds at the local level. What is U-Dise

Unified-District Information System for Education (U-Dise) is a database of information about schools in India. It provides the necessary data for planning and managing school education. Besides, the U-Dise data are used extensively for planning and monitoring development interventions in the SSA and RMSA. Now, U-Dise also serves as the major source of official statistics.

A number of government primary school teachers today gathered in Malout and criticised the Education Department’s decision of suspending a teacher and transferring another in Ludhiana district after some school students were found cleaning the school premises.

The teachers said on the one hand, the Prime Minister was stressing on keeping the surroundings clean and spread awareness among students and on the other hand, action was taken against two teachers for the same cause. Harry Bathla, an activist of the teachers’ union, said the primary schools did not have peons, still they maintained cleanliness. The teachers threatened that if the decision is not rolled back, they would launch a stir. — TNS